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Texas City
Texas City was one of the successor megacities to the United States of America and one of the two largest cities in North America. It's one of Mega-City One's oldest allies and the Great Road connects the two. The Texas City Territories - being whatever Texas City claims jurisdiction over - spread out across the former southern states in the Cursed Earth. Mutants can be citizens of the Territories - mainly in the Mutie Homelands - but have been banned from the city itself, with the exception of certain jobs. They were allowed to serve in the military as the Buffalo Soldier Mutant Irregulars.A Town Called Intolerance The Texas Badlands desert surrounded the city. The Angel Gang used to live there before their deaths. Covering the east of the city is Lake Louisiana. Texas City is famously isolationist, rarely getting involved in crises outside its walls - even ones happening to allied and neighbouring cities. History Texas City was formed before the 2050s and in 2052, it was given extensive self-governing powers under the Autonomy Act.2000 AD prog 1515 "Bad Bob" Booth had been the Governor of Texas City by 2052 and in 2060 he was elected to the Vice-Presidency and, after 2068's election fix, to the presidency. He was opposed to the Justice Departments and Texas City's Chief-Judge Marlon Hunnicut travelled to Mega-City One to discuss how to deal with him - unfortunately, a summit that took place on the eve of the Atomic War. Hunnicut found himself now running one of the few bastions of civilisation in North America.Origins It was one of the signatories to the Hiroshima Accord.Judge Dredd: The Mega-Special #1: "Dredd's World" In 2075, psychic mutants were being locked up in "the freak cages". The future Pa Angel fled the city for the Badlands after robbing the Southern Angel bank, a job set up by the corrupt Judge Hess. Megazine 356-7: "Angelic" At this time, Texas City was trading with Hondo City.Megazine 359: "Angelic part 4" By 2083, relations broke down between Texas City and Mega-City One: the Texans felt they were not getting a fair deal and were being dominated by the north. In the 'interests of unity' and (probably more importantly) to secure the highly valuable resources controlled by Texas City, Mega-City One went to war. The conflict turned into a bloody stalemate and Texas City was allowed greater independence. 2000 AD Annual 1984 text feature Luna-1 was built two years later, partly as a diplomatic gesture: all three Mega-Cities would have control over it. After thirty two years of allowing mutant citizens, Texas City enacted the Mutant Resettlement Program (unofficially the "mutant clearances") in 2102. This moved them to "new homelands" across Lake Louisiana. Whatever the official reason was, a Texan Judge boasted to Judge Dredd that "Texas City will walk tall again without them uglies!" Mutants with permits could still work in "danger parks" where they were exploited for the purposes of entertainment.2000 AD #160-161: "The Judge Child" Saul Cain, later the "Missionary Man", was notorious for his bloody overseeing of the clearances. Over the years, mutant ghettos would appear around the city's new walls: the Outer Wall Dependencies. Judges would sometimes disguise themselves and raid the ghettos for sport.Missionary Man: Night Riders Texas City and Mega-City Two stayed out of the Apocalypse War. They were aware that the Sov Block would come after them later but hoped to spend the time working on their own defences. Mega-City One made a gift of five Judge clones to the city in 2106. (One would grow up to be Judge Rico and return to the city) A large number of perps fled to Texas City to escape MC-1 justice and in 2114, Dredd was sent to collect dozens of them. The overbearing Deputy Chief Judge Honus refused him a warrant out of spite but Dredd exploited the local laws, capturing the fugitives as a 'debt recovery' officer. Honus ordered the Texan Judges to stop Dredd but they deliberately let him succeed.Texas City Sting! Honus would later be deposed and arrested. Judgement Day broke out in the same year. Zombies besieged Texas City but it was able to survive. The Chief Judge was horrified by the idea of nuking the five overrun cities. In 2117, Clinton Box discovered a silo of three hundred nuclear warheads. He used them to blackmail Texas City into letting him form the United Mutant States of America in the Northern Radlands. In the end, Mega-City One had to stop the USM and disable their warheads.The Three Amigos Deputy Chief Judge Honus was arrested for corruption - a move to give the impression that other high-ups weren't corript - and replaced by Judge Wotan, soon before "committing suicide" in his cell in 2120.Megazine 3.38, "Storm Warning" Once he became the new Deputy Chief Judge, Wotan had the (mostly) independent city of New Orleans annexed and Saul Cain, previously its sheriff, turned into a fugitive after he got in the way.Missionary Man: Mardi Gras This was a mistake on Wotan's part as Cain was able to breach the Hall of Justice, abduct Wotan, and murder him in 2120. The Chief Judge attended the 2126 Global Justice Summit in Mega-City One. He was irritated to learn there were still Judda, as MC-1 had assured they'd all been destroyed, and later argued Hershey should capitulate to them. Jihad by James Swallow Total War's leaders were living just outside Texas City in 2126. When they tried to blackmail Mega-City One with nuclear bombs, Texas City Judges were sent in and executed two of the leaders. The Chief Judge at this point was a man called George.Total War In 2138, the new Chief Judge Pamelina Oswin began to covertly arm and organise a mutant gang into the "Grindstone Cowboys" and turned them against Mega-City One's Cursed Earth food farms. Megazine 373 Once the city was weakened, and with its diplomatic ties with Brit-Cit damaged, it turned to Texas City for aid - Mega-City One capitulated to Texas' terms in exchange for thousands of new, 'retrained' Judges.Megazine 371 and prog 1979 This was part of Oswin's grander plan to reunify the former United States under TC's direction, with reactionary elements in Brit-Cit colluding with her for their own purposes. While the Texan Judges did swiftly boost arrests by 6%, executions went up 9% and with a disproportionate number of them being mutants, whom the Texans shot outright; the northern city was then pressured to accept new immigration laws to keep more mutants out, with the promise of further changes to come, and accept Texas City's surplus population. Hershey realised too late that this was a quiet takeover The Lion's Den and Judge Rico learned too late that the Texans were running the Cowboys. Megazine 373 However Dredd, Rico, Dolman, Psi Judge Lewis, and Texan defector Judge Knox form a plan to stop Oswin, the end result being her death 2000 AD Prog 1990 and the end of the union, with Oswin loyalist Judge being killed off. Hershey installed Psi Judge Lewis as Chief Judge of Texas City, silently putting TC under the control of Mega City One.Megazine 374 Relations between Texas and Brit-Cit were suspended for a year until Lewis and Hershey felt sure the latest ambassador could be trusted.Megazine 380 The year after the quiet takeover, Judge Dredd was sent to quietly root out and arrest members of the secret Sector Zero, preferably without Texan Judges being aware of it. As well as carrying out this mission, he rescued several Brit-Cit ambassador's teenagers; we're sure this minor rescue of Messr Nelson Kreelman won't go badly wrong. Deep in the Heart, progs 2012 to 2019, and The Rubicon, Megazine 380-81 Society * Texas City patterns itself on Wild West imagery, with a giant statue of "Tex" looming over the city. * The citizens like showing off their toughness and independence at the "danger parks": "The City That Breeds Big Men", as their motto goes.Judge Dredd: The Mega-Special #1: "Dredd's World" No license is needed for any type of firearm. * As with the Big Meg, there is a Citi-Def citizen defence militia.Mentioned in Megazine #279 Judges and law Texas City has one of the oldest Justice Departments in the world. The Mega-Special #1 described them as "a tough, fiercely independent Judge force (they have successfully fought off plans to rename their city Mega-City Three). Judges are trained to deal not only with problems among their own citizens, but also from the high concentration of mutants from the nearby Mutie Homelands." In 2138, Judge Beeny remarked that Texas's laws were the closest to Mega-City One's out of all other cities.Megazine 371 The Chief Judge, Deputy Chief Judge, and Justice Council operate out of the Lone Star Hall of Justice. Divisions include Outlands Division and Citizen Relations Unit. Outlands Marshals and Texas Rangers patrol the territories and badlands outside the city proper, but don't have any jurisdiction in freetowns. Uniforms mostly resemble Mega-City One Judges but, as with the rest of the city, they've added cowboy iconography: Stetson hats with a 'sheriff badge' symbol instead of helmets and a belt icon of the five-star inset in an eagle (which is sometimes the Stetson icon as well). In 2075, Texan Judges were shown with MC-1's helmets but with a lone star icon in the forehead. The standard weapon is the Smith & Wesson Peacemaker. Judges have used bikes and cars in different strips. Badlands territory is also patrolled by Texas City Rangers. Under Texas City law, cattle rustling in the Territories - and pretty much every crime in the territories - is punishable by hanging.True Grit As with Mega-City One, Texas City cadets are taken on hotdog runs in the Cursed Earth.Tales of the Black Museum: Scouting for Bots Unofficially, another form of hotdog run was for cadets to disguise themselves as nightriders and terrorise the "Mutieville" ghetto so as to learn how to 'handle' mutants.Megazine 2.84, "Nightriders" Tex and Mex-Cit Three Mexican Judges, Che, Chico, and Mex, appear in the Luna-1 stories with Texan uniforms - sometimes drawn with sombreros instead of stetson. As the strip established that only the former US cities were running Luna-1, the intention may have been that Texas City has Mexican-accented inhabitants and Judges. Later strips would mention a Mex-Cit and the book Eclipse would retcon Che and Chico are as Mex-Cit Judges. This would mean Texas City had some form of judicial exchange programme with their Mexican counterparts. Trivia * Some sources have said it used to be called Mega-City Three - and it's both names in the 701 world map - but "Origins" retconned it to have been Texas City since the 2050s. * The "Civil War" between MC-1 and Texas City was part of a fan-submitted timeline that saw print in an annual. It has since been depicted on the prog 169 cover and briefly in the Dread Dominion book, and mentioned in "Monkey on my Back" in Megazine #204 - but Garth Ennis remains the only major Dredd writer to refer to it. * While not specified, Texas City forces would logically have fought in the Battle of Armageddon. Gallery References Category:Locations Category:Judge Dredd Comics